There are no guarantees in coaching, and there are many factors outside of the hire itself that can impact whether it will work out for the school. But with that being said, UF’s vision in hiring Billy Napier was clear.
The former Louisiana coach’s strengths are the same areas where Dan Mullen struggled: recruiting and building a competitive support staff. So far, the early returns on both are quite impressive. Napier has done a remarkable job with his transition class so far and he’s built an army of a staff that rivals those of the nation’s premier programs.
There’s a lot of excitement around the team, and some of that hype extends to the national media as well. 247Sports’ Brandon Marcello graded the very new FBS hires this cycle, and he gave the Gators an “A+” for locking up Napier.
Billy Napier built the best Group of 5 staff in the country at Louisiana, so it’s no surprise he used the same blueprint to hire the top names in the sport and tweak a few responsibilities at Florida. He brought four assistants from the Ragin’ Cajuns to Gainesville, including defensive coordinator Patrick Toney, pilfered a pair of coaches from SEC rivals (including recruiting extraordinaire Corey Raymond), raided the Big Ten for a running backs coach, dipped into the NFL for two more assistants and also hired two coaches to handle the offensive line.
Why two offensive line coaches? Why not? Most programs have two coaches leading the five-man secondary, so why do teams trust one coach to lead all five positions along the offensive line? That’s Napier’s thinking.
Florida gets the honor of the best-built new staff of the offseason with a wide variety of coaches and experience, a new hiring philosophy along the offensive line and the greatest tagline for a special teams coach in the country: gamechanger coordinator. For the health of the program, Napier power-washed the facility and rid it of Dan Mullen’s entire staff, and that might be the best development.
Napier’s work is certainly cut out for him to be competitive in the SEC. Alabama is running the greatest dynasty the sport has ever seen, and Georgia just won a national title after several years of elite recruiting.
But there are certainly encouraging signs so far, and the vision is clear for the future of this program. All that’s left is to put it into action.
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